There are two potential issues. One is that Maliek missed a step in his video because you also have to set a utility app called GPUUtility.exe to use the same GPU as PD. See this post for details.

The other possibility, which affects many people, is that your Dell doesn't have the proper hardware inside to let PD access the NVENC section of the nVidia GPU. You can search the forum for "optimus" to see if you can make changes in the BIOS to allow for that if the step I suggested above doesn't work.

Quote I have a DELL XPS 9560 which has both CPU graphics (Intel 630) and external GPU (NVidia GTX 1050). The problem is that I haven't been able to choose GPU for rendering video, and the Fast Video Rendering Technology is greyed out (see the picture below).

I followed the instructions in the video below to set up my GPU but the option is still greyed out and it is only showing "Intel Quick Sync Video" and not "Hardware video encoder" like shown in the video. How can I change this?

Intel Quick Sync is still "hardware encoding", but done inside Intel GPU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video
You will not be able to use nvida GPU for this, because those selections that you do, apply only to the 3D cores. The video encoding bloc is a separate ASIC block and is not influenced by those setting nor is passed trough by Optimus technology (that's again dedicated to 3D only).

Some laptops can disable in BIOS the Intel GPU and only then you get the direct connection to the NVIDIA GPU. In order to have that, manufacutrer has to install a hardware switch between the two GPU cards and the laptop screen, but that adds cost.
I am not sure if your laptop do that, usually you see that in their "professional" lineup, not in gaming one like XPS.

Quote There are two potential issues. One is that Maliek missed a step in his video because you also have to set a utility app called GPUUtility.exe to use the same GPU as PD. See this post for details.

Thanks! This helped me. I changed the GPU External Checker to High Performance and now I can see the Hardware rendering option in the settings and it seems to work well although Nvidia GPU is only utilised at around 30% instead of 100%.

Quote Thanks! This helped me. I changed the GPU External Checker to High Performance and now I can see the Hardware rendering option in the settings and it seems to work well although Nvidia GPU is only utilised at around 30% instead of 100%.

Could you post the Task Manager > Performance tab pic of your GPU load during your 30% load encoding session? What produce profile?

H.265 encoding most taxing and can use nearly 100% of GPU resource.

Jeff

Quote

Could you post the Task Manager > Performance tab pic of your GPU load during your 30% load encoding session? What produce profile?

H.265 encoding most taxing and can use nearly 100% of GPU resource.

Jeff

I was rendering video from my GoPro Fusion (5.2K, 422 ProRes) into 4K/H256 video. I used my custom profile (attached) but the GPU performance in task manager was hovering around 30-40% the whole time.

Quote I was rendering video from my GoPro Fusion (5.2K, 422 ProRes) into 4K/H256 video. I used my custom profile (attached) but the GPU performance in task manager was hovering around 30-40% the whole time.

Thanks, could you post the Task Manager > Performance tab pic of your GPU load during your 30% load encoding session?

Jeff

Quote

Thanks, could you post the Task Manager > Performance tab pic of your GPU load during your 30% load encoding session?

Jeff

Here is the screenshot from Task Manager during rendering the same video.

Quote Here is the screenshot from Task Manager during rendering the same video.

Thanks, my guess is you are throttled by the CPU being able to process the I/O to the GPU and/or from timeline edits. Your 62% CPU load is very high for GPU encoding, to judge a little better, do you have hyperthreading turned on if Intel or SMT if AMD CPU? I assume for this small test you just have your GoPro Fusion footage without timeline edits other than simple splits. Reason for inquiry is many timeline edit functions require CPU processing prior to GPU encode/decode so they throttle GPU capability being achieved.

Jeff